


In the end? Farewell

by Apate_thy_vindication (AliceHatter)



Category: Violet Evergarden (Anime), ヴァイオレット・エヴァーガーデン - 暁佳奈 | Violet Evergarden - Akatsuki Kana
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Battlefield, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Character Study, Child Soldiers, Childhood, Emotional Hurt, Family, Gen, Loss, Loyalty, Moving On, Post-War, Pre-War, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:47:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28419372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliceHatter/pseuds/Apate_thy_vindication
Summary: Because war takes everyone away, and never returns them to the light.A means to an end for all of them. "Don't leave me behind!"[Especially for a girl named: Violet.]
Comments: 8
Kudos: 16





	In the end? Farewell

**Author's Note:**

> first venture into the fandom, how exciting ahhhh!!!!

The child is nameless when Dietfried pushes the slight figure towards him in the darkened tent. Catching the slightly dirtied child in his arms, his uniform wrinkles as he covers her head, raising his voice towards his brother.

The brother who had a dark and indisputed dislike towards the child- for reasons Gilbert could not understand, for he did not know what he had experienced since he had left. 

Gilbert soon finds that the child was more work than he had thought she would be, more than any of his relatives' children, and he finds himself chasing after her when he hears his nanny screech from the bathroom. "She's _bit_ me-!"

He scolds her for the first time as she stands before him, even shorter than when he's on his knees before her, and she blinks at him as if she can't understand what he's speaking about. 

He might have believed her innocent face alone, had he not noticed the smear of blood on the corner of her lips, the way the red of the blood caught under the light as she turned her head away from him.

He decides she should be taught from the beginning, no matter how quiet she was, in order to fit in with society she had to know the very basics at least. 

Her face was like a doll, as said by many others when they marvelled at her beauty, was stained with soot, and tainted with the flames of war that burned from the oil that was spilled from the shattered glass lamp of the enemy. The enemy that now lay somewhere in the underbrush, with his own sword sticking out of his eye. 

As she turned to face the enemy that grew loud as they thundered towards the lone intruder, Gilbert's hand shook as he raised it to give the order to follow her lead.

He sees Violet's face- the same face he had seen dappled in sunlight when he named her after a flower that meant modesty, faithfulness, humility, loyalty, and was a beauty all the same- her face that was under lit with the crackling flames of the burning trees around her. 

Flames that waved and danced as the heat made the grass shrivel up and blacken in the fire that burned as red as hot coals, and as orange as the rays of a sunset. She doesn't look back at him, but her side profile makes him hesitate as he finally lets his hand fall, and the soldiers that follow under his command, join the fray with yells of their own. 

She doesn't take notice of them as she flits around from enemy soldier to soldier, knocking them down with a thin leg, or jabbing their middles with a sharp elbow to steal their bayonets.

Her blonde hair and ill fitting uniform fills his vision as he watches her kill with terrifying ease, and unstoppable force- even as she faces opponents with her sustained injuries, ones that would likely make even the most hardened soldier in the army wince. 

He sits her down in the medical ward after another successful battle, and she tilts her head to the side, as if unknowing of what she had done "wrong" in his words as he wraps bandages around a deep wound in her arm.

"You have to take yourself into consideration first, Violet. If you're hurt, you take first priority, not winning the battle." 

She purses her lips as she nods jerkily, and he knows that she didn't get what he meant. He sighs as he watches her stumble out of the tent to her own, and he holds his head in his hands, wondering if he should have told her something more. Would it have even mattered if he had tried harder? 

~~It doesn't matter.~~

For she had already long understood what he had been trying to say. 

They hide behind tall slabs of dark slate colored rock, gunfire flying over their heads as the metal bullets dig into the rock above their heads, as if reminding them that each one of those that missed, could have ended up lodged in their heads. At least, Gilbert was thinking about that. 

He was thinking about how his life could end so very easily in every moment of war, and he wishes for the umpteenth time that his family wasn't a noble family that lent its service to its country's military. He wished that even if they were, that they could be in a time of peace, where one side had triumphed, and that there would be no need for war any longer.   
  
His eyes sidle sideways and find that Violet has her gun aimed at a high ledge and watches, as if in slow motion, her gun move quickly and shoot down the snipers that were holding them captive in the small part of the staircase.

"This way!" Her hands grasp at his dirtied uniform as she skirts around the broken edge and tugs him towards the upper area when he hears something fire a few times in the distance. 

Everything falls away as he feels Violet slump over in his arms, not unlike the first time they met, and his eyes are disbelieving as he holds her as they fall to the ground. "Violet? Violet!"

She doesn't answer him, as if still in shock, unknowing of what's happened to her, and she murmurs something. "What?" He leans in close, uncaring of the bullets that ricocheted close to them. 

"I'll get you to safety...I'll make sure of it...I won't leave you he..re..." Her arms tremble as her hands still pull at his uniform front, as if trying to pull him up, even as her eyes start to glaze over, unseeing before his very sight.

It's at this moment that he realizes the sticky blood that's covering his hands are not from her wounds, but from his own. 

He can feel his broken rib from earlier dislodge, and he doesn't remove his arms from around her as he sees his blood trail down from his mouth to the rock that he supported himself on.

Violet almost unmoving as she still murmurs softly of how she would get him to safety, and he nearly laughs before failing to from the excruciating pain that dulled as every second passed by. 

"It's alright, Violet. We're safe now." Her motions still at his calming voice, and her arms fall to her sides, her faint whispers fading into the howling wind as snow piles up around them. "Thank you, Violet."

Thank you for being with me. Thank you for being in my life. Thank you for the memories you have given me, for the loyalty you have shown me, for the new ways to experience this world.

 _Thank you._

And Gilbert Bougainvillea's eyes close for the last time. 

Dietfried's legs have held him up for all his life, but at this critical moment, they fail him, and he falls to the ground, his knees burning with the pain as rocks dig into the material of his pants. But what was that benign pain when- when his brother lay buried under these rocks? 

He can hear someone calling his name in the background but a buzzing in his ears seems to drown it out as unnecessary noise as he stares blankly at the collapsed castle of the battle that had taken place here, right in the heart of enemy territory, before they had taken it the week prior and claimed it for their country. 

He had, in high spirits, sent a letter to his brother, waiting for the reply that would usually take less than a few days, which slowly turned into a week, and Dietfried with an uncomfortable suspicion, waits for the reply to his brother's friend, and receives the letter that made his chair fall to the floor and grab his coat as he rushed for the nearest train, which led him to here. This moment.

He stares at the hand that can be seen from under the rubble, the one with the Bougainvillea family ring on his finger, and all of a sudden Dietfried doesn't hold back like he's held back all his life. He was done with that petty thing, as if holding back would bring back his brother? His only remaining family who was gone? Just like that?

 ~~ **No.**~~

But as Dietfried's nails broke under the heavy weight of the rocks he was pulling out of the way of his brother's body, he could only repeat that one word. "No. No. _No_." It couldn't be him. It couldn't be Gilbert, his brother. His always smiling, kind, warm and welcoming brother. 

As Dietfried removes the last few rocks, he catches a glimpse of blonde, and he wrenches away the slabs to reveal his brother's face. His breath stops in his throat, choking him as he blinks through the blur of tears that made their way down his cheeks, his heart in turmoil as he scrapes at the chunks of rock surrounding him in the frozen dirt. 

"No. Stop- stop it, Gilbert." _Stop being dead._

"Get up." _Don't make me go through this life alone._

"I said, wake up!" _Why did you have to die?_

Dietfried's eyes rove around his brother's still body, stopping upon a blonde head- that thing- that child he had given Gilbert as a child soldier, a weapon, was wrapped in his arms, even in death. He spots the bullet wounds in her back, her legs, the way her fingers had frozen, curled up, as if hooked into material. 

"So you...you tried to protect him, huh..?" Dietfried's shoulders shook in his convulsing sobs at his revelation, that the child soldier was not just an unfeeling weapon he could move around to his will.

And with her last breath, she had protected his brother, his family, and in doing so, had made space in Dietfried's heart- for gratitude. 

Even if she wasn't able to get him to safety, he doubted that his brother would have just left her behind at the cost of her life. He would have gone back for her, or at the very least told her to run and leave him behind, which she didn't.

He watches his brother's body and her body get separated, the freezing temperatures having let them remain in their appearances, and he thanks god for that small respite. 

He doesn't know if he could have ever remembered his brother when he was alive had he been a decomposing corpse when he had revealed him from under the pile of rocks. The trauma that would have been given, he would have nightmares about his brother's death, yes, that was true. But at least his brother wouldn't be remembered in a way he didn't want to remember him. 

Dietfried had to survive in a world where his brother no longer existed. Had to live in a world where he was the only remaining member of his family. His eyes glare out the window as the car starts up, the countryside moving past at a fast pace as they return home. 

Now he would finish what his country started. He would _end_ this war, and he would dedicate the peace that came after, to his family. 

Years later when the war ended, there are new graves that have been marked, engraved, and still decorated with fresh flowers sometimes every week, and sometimes every few months.

A man with long braided hair had placed them there, standing above them under the shade of a large tree, and as time went on, the man always returned. 

One day, his hair is cut short as he holds bouquets of flowers in his hands. On another day he is seen in the distance, standing before the graves, holding the hand of a woman and a child. They too leave and the graves are alone in the shade.

One is marked: _Gilbert Bougainvillea_.

The smaller one: _Violet Evergarden._

**Author's Note:**

> loveloveloveeeeeee the anime, each episode honestly decided to give me the feels and it's just sooooSOOOOO good. animation is top tier. voices are godly. love love LOVE it. anyways, hope u liked this!!! I appreciate all kudos & comments!!! <333


End file.
